Crises of life as conditions for changing I - identity Maleichuk Gennady Ivanovich The encyclopedic dictionary contains the following definition of crisis. Crisis (from the Greek krisis - decision, turning point, outcome) is a sharp turning point in something, a difficult transitional state. A crisis is a state of emotional and mental stress that requires a significant change in ideas about the world and oneself in a short period of time. The content of a psychological crisis is an acute emotional state that arises in a difficult situation of a person’s collision with obstacles to the satisfaction of his most important problems. The following are called signs of a crisis, which can also serve as criteria for its diagnosis: the presence of an event that causes stress, leading to frustration and accompanied by a feeling of hopelessness, failure in achieving vital goals; experiencing grief; feeling of loss, danger, humiliation; feelings of inferiority; destruction of the usual course of life; uncertainty of the future; lack of integrity of vision of the situation; fear; despair; feelings of loneliness and rejection; suffering. According to the time parameter, crises are divided into: acute, short-term; protracted; crises of transition periods associated with age and limited in time. From the point of view of dynamics, there are 4 successive stages of crisis (J. Kaplan): 1. Primary increase in tension, stimulating habitual ways of solving problems; 2. Further increase in tension in conditions where these methods are unsuccessful;3. Even greater tension, requiring the mobilization of external and internal sources;4. In an unfavorable course, if the crisis has not been resolved, there is an increase in anxiety and depression, a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness, leading to disorganization of the individual. The crisis can end at any stage if the external danger disappears or a solution to the situation is discovered. Traditionally, the concept of “crisis” has been assigned a negative attitude, first of all it concerns ordinary consciousness. A crisis, a crisis period, is perceived by a person as something unstable, unstable, accompanied by a depressing experience, a state of internal discomfort. Whatever crises we are talking about, be it age crises, economic, political, etc., their main criterion is the characteristic of instability, instability, which sets a generally negative context for this phenomenon. However, if we consider crises in the ontogenetic aspect, then here, a successfully resolved crisis is a factor in further development, leading to the formation of qualitatively new mental and personal formations. A dialectical view of the essence of the crisis involves seeing both negative and positive aspects in the crisis phenomenon. When using a systematic approach to defining psychic reality, the latter can be presented as an integral, developing system. With this view, mental reality as a whole and the Self, as its central component, is a complex, contradictory system with properties of stability and variability. Indeed, any living system strives to maintain its stability - this is an empirical fact. However, the dialectics of development often shows us opposite facts. Stability and stability, taken to the limit, loses the property of development. Perfect stability of form is a dead-end option in which all dynamics are lost. So, for example, excessive adaptation is just as undesirable as its absence. Consequently, if life is considered as a process, with all its properties - fluidity, dynamism, pace, then crises are its integral attributes, turning points along the path of this process, in which a change in life form occurs. Considering the crisis of life from the point of view of a subject experiencing crisis, it can be argued that a personal crisis is a crisis of the Self.